2001 Science in Society Journalism Award winners

Stories about the seriously flawed national flu vaccine program, the historic decoding of the human genome, the struggle to preserve the New England fish population, the inadequate science behind the country’s dietary fat dictates, troubling questions about depleted uranium lingering in former war zones, and the tantalizing potential of methane hydrates all earned top honors for journalists in the 2001 Science in Society Journalism Award.

The National Association of Science Writers holds the independent competition annually to honor outstanding investigative and interpretive reporting about the sciences and their impact on society for good and bad. The 66-year-old organization aims to recognize and to encourage critical, probing works in six categories — newspaper, magazine, television, radio, Web and book — without subsidy from any professional or commercial interest. Winners each receive $1,000 and a certificate.

In the first Science in Society prize for a book, the judges praised Vermont author and journalist David Dobbs for The Great Gulf. The book examines the conflict between scientists and fishermen who are struggling to preserve the New England groundfish population. It showed how science, history and politics in the region have collided to create a perfect storm of science and society. Since the 1980s, increasingly stringent fishing regulations for the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank have pushed two well-meaning groups — scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service and commercial fishermen — into repeated clashes over how many fish can be safely taken from the ecosystem-and how to understand the ocean itself.

By focusing on the efforts and lives of a few individuals, Dobbs created a balanced, engaging story, told with vigor and insight, and even a touch of humor. "A reasonable person might ask whether any of this mattered," Dobbs wrote. "Obviously it mattered a lot to the fishermen, who resented that Fisheries Service formulas allowed little room for the sort of anecdotal knowledge that fishermen possessed in abundance. (’You want to piss off a room full of fishermen,’ Jay Burnett told me a few months later in this same scientist’s lounge, ’just say the word anecdotal.’)"

It’s not easy to hold the attention of a television audience for a two-hour documentary — especially on the intimidating topic of molecular biology. In this year’s winning TV entry, NOVA’s "Cracking the Code of Life," producers Elizabeth Arledge and Julia Cort and correspondent Robert Krulwich presented the complex story of the sequencing of the human genome with accuracy, a noted inquisitiveness, and even humor. Judges particularly commended the producers for clearly elucidating the biological, cultural and social ramifications of this intricate endeavor. For those coming to this multifaceted topic with an incomplete grasp of the science and other complexities, it was a splendid primer on perhaps the most important science story of the year.

The two-year collaborative project between WGBH/Boston and Clear Blue Sky Productions began as a story of the race to sequence the human genome told in a pivotal year through the experiences of the people at the two main competing labs, Celera Genomics (a private company) and the Whitehead Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the largest federally sponsored group, Arledge said. With extensive inside access, film crews recorded fresh reactions of key scientists as events unfolded. Usually, storytelling is uncovered after the fact. Even then, when the story was nearly finished editing, the scientific papers published in February 2001 revealed so much new and unexpected information (such as a reduced number of genes, the similarities in DNA between us and every other species) that the team rewrote, re-interviewed people, and found new visual materials.

In the newspaper category, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Sabin Russell, Reynolds Holding and Elizabeth Fernandez told a compelling and suspenseful story about the flu vaccine industry that reminded some judges of Upton Sinclair’s accounts of the meat industry nearly a century ago. The reporters revealed the fragile underpinnings of an important public health effort — a shaky collaboration between government and commercial forces that relies on guesswork, outdated technology and delivery of 500,000 chicken eggs per day. News reporting is often directed toward the future dangers of scientific developments, judges noted, but this story shows the risk posed today from wide-scale implementation of a scientific achievement. The result was a shocking look at the modern intersection of science and public health.

Last fall’s national chaos signaled a clear warning to Russell, a science reporter, about a flawed system that warranted greater understanding. He teamed up with Holding, who has a strong legal background and Fernandez, an investigative reporter. Investigative efforts ranged from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to meeting transcripts of obscure committees of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. What emerged was picture of a brittle system pushed beyond limits to vaccinate as many people as possible.

"All it takes is a subtle genetic change in flu viruses and we could have a pandemic like in 1918," said Russell, who hopes their stories add pressure to correct the system’s vulnerabilities. "I’d hate to write a story about how we were taken by surprise. The great irony about last year was that even though we weren’t ready and there were temporary shortages and panic buying, it was one of mildest flu seasons on record. There couldn’t have more painless way to get serious warning."

Freelance writer Gary Taubes won his third Science in Society award with his Science magazine story, "The soft science of dietary fat." Following his prize winning technique of evaluating how inadequate scientific tools are used to dictate important national health issues — what people should eat — he once again shows there is still much to be mined in a topic long considered settled and indisputable. With painstaking research and in-depth reporting, he challenges the accepted wisdom on dietary fat and displays the chinks in its armor. Many of his reported findings are still controversial, yet judges lauded his risk-taking reporting, making us think twice about obsessing about our dietary choices.

Taubes, a freelance writer, spent a year on the story mostly supported by other writing projects. Each story in this vein takes longer than the last, he said. For this one, He interviewed about 150 people. As a result, in his own shopping Taubes ignores the nationally approved health advice and hunts, sometimes in vain, for yogurt made out of whole milk. When his friends ask him for scientifically sound dietary advice, the only thing he can tell them is still what his mother told him: Eat your fresh fruits and vegetables, and watch your weight.

Two people shared the Web award, given for the first time this year to support laudable efforts in the new media. Both winners used mostly text to tell complex international stories, in part from a philosophy to reach as many people as possible on potentially slow home modems that make up a large share of the Web audience, whose computers might be stalled by large video, audio and graphic files.

Using the excuse of rising gas prices, "Why Files" writer Dave Tenenbaum followed up on a long-standing interest in the tantalizing potential of methane hydrates, a vast hard-to-tap resource deep in the crust. He deftly navigated among points of view ranging from Wall Street demands for profitable new energy sources and to scientific concerns about global warming. "Cheap energy is always assumed to be a good thing, but these days you can’t really discuss energy without considering warming," Tenenbaum said.

Following up on a tip from his dad, a radiologist in Germany, Franzen asked what happens after war when the shooting stops. Depleted uranium ammunition — used in the Gulf War and the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia and Kosovo — has been hailed as the military’s new silver bullet and condemned as the Agent Orange of the Balkan conflict. The question is now whether the abundant, armor-piercing metal that lies scattered over a wide area of the Balkans presents a health threat to soldiers and civilians, Franzen said. He explored the physics of radiation, the biology of exposure, and the science of modern weapons. Much of the controversy has focused on leukemia. So far, investigating health organizations haven’t found higher rates of leukemia, but believe some caution is warranted. The story has been widely — sometimes badly — reported in Europe, but has not received much attention in this country.

Last year, the award expanded from three categories (newspaper, magazine, and television and radio) to six categories (newspaper, magazine, television, radio, Web, and book). No prizes were given in the Web and book categories last year. No prizes were awarded this year for radio, because entries did not sufficiently meet the competition’s main criterion — a work that explores or explicates the role or ramifications of scientific discovery within the broader society. Stories about adulatory advances in sciences, however significant and well-written, were not eligible unless they also addressed the downside of science, such as ethical problems and societal impacts.

The award was co-chaired by Beryl Lieff Benderly, freelance journalist and book author in Washington D.C., and Carol Cruzan Morton, Boston Globe and Harvard Medical School in Boston. In the first stage of judging, finalists were selected from more than 140 entries.

The awards are administered by Diane McGurgan, executive director, National Association of Science Writers. The deadline for submission of entries for the 2002 Science in Society Awards is July 1, 2002, for work published or broadcast in North America between June 1, 2001, and May 31, 2002.

In the first Science in Society prize for a book, the judges praised Vermont author and journalist David Dobbs for
The Great Gulf. The book examines the conflict between scientists and fishermen who are struggling to preserve the New England groundfish population. It showed how science, history and politics in the region have collided to create a perfect storm of science and society. Since the 1980s, increasingly stringent fishing regulations for the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank have pushed two well-meaning groups — scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service and commercial fishermen — into repeated clashes over how many fish can be safely taken from the ecosystem, and how to understand the ocean itself.

By focusing on the efforts and lives of a few individuals, Dobbs created a balanced, engaging story, told with vigor and insight, and even a touch of humor. “A reasonable person might ask whether any of this mattered,” Dobbs wrote. “Obviously it mattered a lot to the fishermen, who resented that Fisheries Service formulas allowed little room for the sort of anecdotal knowledge that fishermen possessed in abundance. ('You want to piss off a room full of fishermen,' Jay Burnett told me a few months later in this same scientist's lounge, 'just say the word anecdotal.')”

Having engaged the natural world as angler, hiker, reader, wildlife tracker, and crew member on logging operations, fishing boats, and research boats, author David Dobbs has focused much of his work on how cultural and personal perspectives shape our relations with nature.

His first book, The Northern Forest (Chelsea Green, 1995, coauthored with Richard Ober) examines how differing aesthetic conceptions of the New England forest shape the political debate about overharvesting and development. The book drew acclaim from both forestry and environmental communities and won numerous awards.

In The Great Gulf, Dobbs explores how the divergent ways in which fishery scientists and fishermen study the ocean — one quantitative, broad-scaled, and highly structured, the other intuitive and close-grained — created a destructive clash over not just how many fish remain in New England’s once-rich ocean, but how to best understand nature. The clash over fish stock assessments, says Dobbs, is "an epistemological debate disguised as a fish fight."

Originally from Texas, Dobbs now lives in Montpelier, Vermont. He is currently writing Reef Madness, a book about the 30-year argument that 19th Century oceanographer Alexander Agassiz had with Charles Darwin over how coral reefs form, to be published by Pantheon in 2003.

Freelance writer Gary Taubes won his third Science in Society award with his Science magazine story, “The soft science of dietary fat.” Following his prize winning technique of evaluating how inadequate scientific tools are used to dictate important national health issues — what people should eat — he once again shows there is still much to be mined in a topic long considered settled and indisputable. With painstaking research and in-depth reporting, he challenges the accepted wisdom on dietary fat and displays the chinks in its armor. Many of his reported findings are still controversial, yet judges lauded his risk-taking reporting, making us think twice about obsessing about our dietary choices.

Taubes, a freelance writer, spent a year on the story mostly supported by other writing projects. Each story in this vein takes longer than the last, he said. For this one, He interviewed about 150 people. As a result, in his own shopping Taubes ignores the nationally approved health advice and hunts, sometimes in vain, for yogurt made out of whole milk. When his friends ask him for scientifically sound dietary advice, the only thing he can tell them is still what his mother told him: Eat your fresh fruits and vegetables, and watch your weight.

Last fall’s national chaos signaled a clear warning to Russell, a science reporter, about a flawed system that warranted greater understanding. He teamed up with Holding, who has a strong legal background and Fernandez, an investigative reporter. In addition to extensive interviews, investigative efforts included Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and acquisition of meeting transcripts from vaccine policy committees of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. What emerged was picture of a brittle system pushed beyond limits to vaccinate as many people as possible.

"All it takes is a subtle genetic change in flu viruses and we could have a pandemic like in 1918," said Russell, who hopes their stories add pressure to correct the system’s vulnerabilities. "I’d hate to write a story about how we were taken by surprise. The great irony about last year was that even though we weren’t ready and there were temporary shortages and panic buying, it was one of mildest flu seasons on record. There couldn’t have more painless way to get serious warning."

Sabin Russell is a medical writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he has been a reporter for 15 years and currently covers medical science and health policy. He has a particular focus on infectious diseases, and has primary responsibility for the paper’s coverage of AIDS. In recent months, however, much of his work has involved coverage of anthrax and other biological weapons.

Russell’s work on AIDS has taken him twice to Africa, including coverage of the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2000. With a grant from the Kaiser Family Foundation, he has traveled to Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe as well as South Africa. He has written extensively on the efforts to produce low-cost generic AIDS drugs in developing countries, and covered the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS this past summer. He has written or co-authored numerous investigative pieces. Topics include the failed merger of UCSF and Stanford hospitals; a probe of the controversial Nezhat brothers, three renowned gynecological surgeons recently suspended by Stanford for "seriously deficient’’ academic research; and the story of how a rogue medical laboratory faked results of HIV and hepatitis tests on state prisoners, and how California subsequently failed to retest inmates. Russell’s science articles have covered topics as diverse as apoptosis, or programmed cell death, to presbyopia, the reason why almost everyone over the age of 43 needs reading glasses.

Russell previously covered venture capital and entrepreneurs as San Francisco bureau chief for Venture Magazine; covered the Silicon Valley semiconductor industry for Electronic News, and began his career 25 years ago as a writer for community weekly newspapers in Vermont and New Hampshire. Russell graduated from Yale in 1974, and is married to San Francisco children’s book author and illustrator Ashley Wolff, and they have two boys.

He practiced law at the New York firm of Debevoise & Plimpton for nine years, specializing in securities offerings and financings for large industrial projects.

His career in journalism started between college and law school with the Shreveport (Louisiana) Journal, where he wrote news stories and editorials as assistant editor of the paper’s editorial page.

Holding joined the Chronicle in 1991 as a legal affairs writer, covering the courts and trends in the law. He began writing a weekly legal column, "Holding Court," in 1995, and became a full-time investigative reporter in 1997. His stories have ranged from uncovering deadly killings at California prisons to documenting financial fraud in Silicon Valley. In 1999, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series of stories on the dangers of medical needles.

Holding lives in San Francisco with his wife Carol and daughter Carolyn.

Elizabeth Fernandezis an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Previously, she worked for 15 years as an investigative and general assignment reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. She also worked as a staff writer for the Sacramento Bee, the Contra Costa Independent, the Riverside Press-Enterprise, and the San Jose SUN.

It’s not easy to hold the attention of a television audience for a two-hour documentary — especially on the intimidating topic of molecular biology. In this year’s winning TV entry, NOVA’s “Cracking the Code of Life” producers Elizabeth Arledge and Julia Cort and correspondent Robert Krulwich presented the complex story of the sequencing of the human genome with accuracy, a noted inquisitiveness, and even humor. Judges particularly commended the producers for clearly elucidating the biological, cultural and social ramifications of this intricate endeavor. For those coming to this multifaceted topic with an incomplete grasp of the science and other complexities, it was a splendid primer on perhaps the most important science story of the year.

The two-year collaborative project between WGBH/Boston and Clear Blue Sky Productions began as a story of the race to sequence the human genome told in a pivotal year through the experiences of the people at the two main competing labs, Celera Genomics (a private company) and the Whitehead Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the largest federally sponsored group, Arledge said. With extensive inside access, film crews recorded fresh reactions of key scientists as events unfolded. Usually, storytelling is uncovered after the fact. Even then, when the story was nearly finished editing, the scientific papers published in February 2001 revealed so much new and unexpected information (such as a reduced number of genes, the similarities in DNA between us and every other species) that the team rewrote, re-interviewed people, and found new visual materials.

Elizabeth Arledge has been a documentary producer, writer, and director for over 20 years and has broad experience in developing, producing, directing, writing, reporting, and editing for national network, cable, and public television. She began her career at WCVB-TV in Boston where she was a founding producer of the award-winning longtime series “Chronicle.” After joining WGBH/Boston in 1982, Ms. Arledge produced a series of local half hour documentaries, including the winner of the Corporation for Public Television Local Broadcasting Award, "Two Intimate Journeys." This program was also awarded the American Women in Radio and Television Award.

From local programming Ms. Arledge moved to national production in 1983, as an associate producer and then producer on Frontline, where she produced, wrote, and directed 10 programs and received the California Trial Lawyers Award, the John Muir Medical Film Festival Award, and was nominated for a national Emmy for "The Death of Nancy Cruzan." For WNET/13 in New York, Ms. Arledge produced and wrote "Live Long and Prosper," which won the OWL Award. For CBS News she produced a series of documentaries and stories for "Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel." For NOVA, Ms. Arledge produced "Surviving AIDS" (1999) which was awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science Excellence in Television Award, and was nominated for a Writers Guild Award. She is currently at work developing a six part series for NOVA on Childrens Hospital Boston. She lives in Cambridge, Mass. with her 12-year old daughter.

Julia Cort started making films over 20 years ago as a student at Harvard, when science was the last thing on her mind. Her thesis film, “A Fine Romance,” an examination of her parents’ complicated marriage, won the New England Film and Video Festival Student Film Award. During the 1980’s, she spent several years in New York and Los Angeles, paying dues on more than twenty feature films and television productions, including “Imagine: John Lennon,” “Tales from the Darkside,” and “Dirty Dancing.” After returning to Boston and her documentary roots, Ms. Cort joined the WGBH Science Unit, which produces NOVA. Hired in 1991 as an associate producer, she became a staff producer/writer six years ago. “Cracking the Code of Life” is one of seventeen NOVA programs she’s worked on. Others include “Runaway Universe,” “The Vikings,” and the popular “Secrets of Lost Empires” series on ancient technology. She received the 1998 AAAS Science Journalism Award for the NOVA “Warnings from the Ice,” a sobering look at Antarctica’s unstable ice sheets. In 1999, Ms. Cort was selected to attend the first annual "Genes & Cells Boot Camp," a Knight Science Journalism Mini-Fellowship at MIT. Insights from this intensive weeklong course on genetics were put to good use in “Cracking the Code of Life.” Ms. Cort’s most recent project at NOVA is “Life’s Greatest Miracle,” a new HDTV look inside-the-body at human reproduction, photographed by Swedish legend Lennart Nilsson, the mastermind behind NOVA’s classic film “Miracle of Life.” She lives in Milton, MA with her husband, archeologist Mark Lehner, and their two young children.

Robert Krulwich has explained arbitrage by wearing Groucho glasses, illustrated the Texaco-Pennzoil battle with Barbie and Ken dolls, and (to his eternal regret) demonstrated a video game by driving around in a car with Connie Chung. In short, Krulwich is "the most inventive network reporter in television" (TV Guide), a beloved correspondent who for years has made economics, technology, and science funny, entertaining and comprehensible.

A 1974 Columbia Law School graduate, Krulwich quit the profession after only two months to become Washington bureau chief for Pacifica Radio. From there, he went on the air at National Public Radio, perfecting his unique, quirky style by, among other things, recording an opera called "Rato Interesso" to explain interest rates. After hosting the acclaimed PBS-TV arts series, “The Edge,” he joined CBS This Morning in 1984. Now at ABC News, he appears regularly on Nightline and hosted the network’s 1999 primetime summer series, “Brave New World.” His work on the PBS-TV series, Frontline, has won him Emmy, George Polk and DuPont awards for programs on subjects from campaign finance reform to the internet. Once a year, with friends Jane Curtin, Buck Henry and Tony Hendra, he hosts a semi-fictional year-in-review called Backfire. In 1995, the group performed at the White House at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton.

Krulwich believes that viewers can grasp difficult concepts better from simple, everyday objects — refrigerator magnets, say, or even hand puppets — than from high-tech computer graphics. “TV is best,” he says, “when something explodes, when somebody cries, when somebody’s angry or sad, or very happy. When there’s love in the air, or tragedy, you can say, ‘look at this.’“ In his lectures and personal appearances, Robert Krulwich is a show — and an education — all by himself.

Using the excuse of rising gas prices, Why Files writer Dave Tenenbaum followed up on a long-standing interest in the tantalizing potential of methane hydrates, a vast hard-to-tap resource deep in the crust (Oct. 5, 2000). He deftly navigated among points of view ranging from Wall Street demands for profitable new energy sources to scientific concerns about global warming. “Cheap energy is always assumed to be a good thing, but these days you can’t really discuss energy without considering warming,” Tenenbaum said.

Two people shared the Web award, given for the first time this year to support laudable efforts in the new media. Both winners used mostly text to tell complex international stories, in part from a philosophy to reach as many people as possible on potentially slow home modems that make up a large share of the Web audience, whose computers might be stalled by large video, audio and graphic files.

At The Why Files, Tenenbaum joins the rest of the four-person staff in selecting stories, and then engaging in backgrounding, interviewing, writing and other duties of a journalist. Tenenbaum says he loves his job because The Why Files covers an incredible variety of stories, and “because my editor, Terry Devitt, is not afraid of my sense of humor.”

Following up on a tip from his dad, a radiologist in Germany, Franzen asked what happens after war when the shooting stops. Depleted uranium ammunition — used in the Gulf War and the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia and Kosovo — has been hailed as the military’s new silver bullet and condemned as the Agent Orange of the Balkan conflict. The question is now whether the abundant, armor-piercing metal that lies scattered over a wide area of the Balkans presents a health threat to soldiers and civilians, Franzen said. He explored the physics of radiation, the biology of exposure, and the science of modern weapons. Much of the controversy has focused on leukemia. So far, investigating health organizations haven’t found higher rates of leukemia, but believe some caution is warranted. The story has been widely — sometimes badly — reported in Europe, but has not received much attention in this country.

Two people shared the Web award, given for the first time this year to support laudable efforts in the new media. Both winners used mostly text to tell complex international stories, in part from a philosophy to reach as many people as possible on potentially slow home modems that make up a large share of the Web audience, whose computers might be stalled by large video, audio and graphic files.